"Mr. D'Angelo, we'll need a few minutes. Please sit—"
"I'm not sitting."
He stood rigid while the nurse drew his blood. He didn't blink. Didn't breathe. Didn't move.
"Sir… you're a compatible type. But we still need to run the full genetic match."
Kieran didn't respond.
Not to the nurse —Not to the doctor.
Not to the silent question hanging in the air:
Why do you match the boy so perfectly?
His gaze was empty, fixed on the door like a predator waiting to be released.
"Call me when you have results," he said flatly and walked out.
He never once looked at the child.
He couldn't.
Not when Aurielle was still missing.
Not when every second mattered.
He had a target.
He had a direction.
And for the first time since Aurielle vanished, he had hope.
Then the phone rang again.
He answered without looking.
"What?"
"Kieran D'Angelo," Jason murmured. "Let's see how much you love your wife."
Kieran froze.
"Jason," he growled, "if you touch—"
"I already have," Jason cut in softly. "I'll send you a location. I dare you to come save her."
The call ended.
A ping followed.
A location.
Remote. Empty. At the edge of the city… almost off the map.
"Get the car," he snapped to his men.
His voice wasn't a voice.
It was murder.
The road narrowed to nothing.
A cliff.
Fog crawling low across cracked asphalt.
No houses.
No lights.
Just silence.
And a single black car parked at the edge.
Kieran jumped out before the vehicle even stopped.
His men followed, guns raised.
"Sir, wait—let us sweep—"
But Kieran wasn't listening.
He heard something.
Not clearly.
But enough to slice through his soul.
A voice.
Muffled, terrified.
"K–Kieran… help… me… Kieran… please…"
Kieran's eyes widened.
"Aurielle."
He ran.
Bolted toward the car like a madman.
His men shouted after him—
"BOSS, STOP!"
"Sir don't go near—"
"There's something under the vehicle—!"
A device.
A trigger.
A bomb.
His right-hand man lunged and grabbed him, dragging him backward.
"Don! LOOK! There's a detonator—there's a bomb in the car!"
Kieran roared—a sound that wasn't human.
"LET ME GO! MY WIFE IS INSIDE! JASON YOU SICK—LET ME FUCKING GO!"
His muscles strained.
He fought them like an animal.
He would rather die with her than stand here doing nothing.
"AURIEEEEELLE!"
And then—
Click.
A sound from under the car.
A blinking red light.
Kieran's breath caught.
"No… no… no—AURIE—"
BOOM.
The world exploded.
Fire swallowed the car.
Metal ripped apart.
The ground shook.
Kieran was thrown backward, hitting the asphalt hard.
His ears rang.
Heat burned his skin.
Dust filled his lungs.
He lifted his head slowly.
The flames reflected in his eyes.
The car—
The car that held the only woman he ever loved—
was nothing but a burning skeleton.
Kieran pushed to his knees.
His hands grabbed his hair.
His chest heaved, cracked, broke.
He let out a sound no man should ever have to make.
A sound that tore from the deepest part of him.
His men stood frozen, horrified.
Kieran bowed forward, forehead nearly touching the ground as he shook violently.
"I was too late," he whispered.
A tear hit the dirt.
Then another.
Then more.
His voice cracked, raw and broken—
"Aurielle… baby… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
The fire raged.
And Kieran D'Angelo, the feared mafia don who never bowed to anyone,
bowed to the earth and cried for the woman he couldn't save.
—————-
Two days passed.
Two days of silence so heavy the entire D'Angelo estate felt like a tomb.
No one dared speak above a whisper.
No one dared look Kieran in the eye.
Because the don they knew —
the man who ruled cities, who broke men with a word, who walked like a king —
had vanished the night Aurielle's car went up in flames.
What remained wasn't a man.
It was something cracked… hollow… and dangerous.
Kieran hadn't spoken a full sentence since.
He hadn't slept.
He hadn't showered.
He hadn't changed his blood–stained shirt.
He simply sat.
Slumped on the leather chair in his private office, elbows on his knees, head bowed, fingers tangled in his hair as if trying to hold himself together.
The monitors on the wall flickered with footage his men tried to gather —
CCTV. Satellite feeds. Dead ends.
Every lead evaporated.
Every trace of her was gone.
Just like she was.
Just like his heart.
The maids whispered in terror.
The guards walked on eggshells.
Even hitmen — the ones who feared nothing — stayed far from his door.
Because in forty-eight hours…
Kieran had murdered nine men.
Random criminals.
Gang members.
Anyone unlucky enough to cross his path in the city.
He didn't interrogate.
He didn't question.
He didn't plan.
He killed.
Coldly.
Mindlessly.
Like a man trying to drown grief in blood.
Sterling — his right-hand man — stood by the door now, watching the don who had once terrified nations.
This version of Kieran terrified him. His soul… gone.
Sterling swallowed hard.
No one had ever seen their don like this.
Not the staff.
Not the guards.
Not even Elias D'Angelo — Kieran's father — who paced irritatedly through the halls these two days complaining about "business delays" and "share values dropping."
Elias didn't care.
He never cared.
He didn't ask about Aurielle.
He didn't ask about Kieran.
His only fear was the company.
Pathetic.
Sterling clenched his jaw, then stepped inside.
"Boss…" he started, voice low.
Kieran didn't lift his head.
Not even a twitch.
Sterling hesitated, something like grief flickering in his own expression.
He had thought Aurielle was temporary, a pretty toy, a phase the don would grow bored of.
Hell — everyone thought that.
Until now.
Until they saw what losing her did to him.
This wasn't attachment —This was love.
Painful, bone-deep, soul-breaking love.
Sterling cleared his throat.
"Sir… the hospital has been trying to reach you."
Silence.
Sterling forced himself to continue.
"The boy… your wife's son… he's awake."
Kieran's fingers tightened slightly around his hair.
"He has been crying," Sterling added softly. "Calling for his mother. Asking where she is."
A muscle in Kieran's jaw twitched — the first sign of life in hours.
Sterling exhaled shakily.
"Sir… the doctors ran the full test. They said they need you back at the hospital. They said it's… important."
Sterling took one step closer.
"Don… please. You can't sit here forever."
His voice cracked. "Your wife, Aurielle would hate this."
Something inside Kieran broke at her name.
His shoulders shook once — barely — but Sterling saw it.
Then, slowly… painfully…
Kieran lifted his head.
His eyes weren't eyes.
They were ruins.
But beneath that deadness…
something flickered.
Responsibility.
For her.
For the child she left behind.
Kieran stood.
Not steady.
Not strong.
But standing.
"For Auri," he said — voice low, hoarse, unfamiliar.
"For her… I'll take care of the boy."
Sterling nodded, relief hitting him so hard his chest stung.
Kieran reached for his discarded black coat, the same coat he wore the night she died.
He didn't bother brushing the ash off it.
He shrugged it over his shoulders, still swaying slightly.
"Get the car," he said.
And as Sterling hurried to obey, he heard the don whisper under his breath—
"I'll bring him home. He won't cry alone. Not anymore."
Kieran walked out of the mansion's front doors…
…toward the truth waiting for him at the hospital.
A truth that would shatter him all over again.